Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

Written by the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP) or Theologico-Political Treatise was one of the most controversial texts of the early modern period. It was a preemptive defense[clarification needed] of Spinoza's later work, Ethics, published posthumously in 1677, for which he anticipated harsh criticism.

The treatise was published anonymously in 1670 by Jan Rieuwertsz in Amsterdam; in order to protect the author and publisher from political retribution, the title page identified the city of publication as Hamburg and the publisher as Henricus Kunraht. It was written in New Latin rather than the vernacular Dutch in an attempt to avoid censorship by the secular Dutch authorities.

In the treatise, Spinoza put forth his most systematic critique of Judaism, and all organized religion in general. Spinoza argued that theology and philosophy must be kept separate, particularly in the reading of scripture. Whereas the goal of theology is obedience, philosophy aims at understanding rational truth. Scripture does not teach philosophy and thus cannot be made to conform with it, otherwise the meaning of scripture will be distorted. Conversely, if reason is made subservient to scripture, then, Spinoza argues, "the prejudices of a common people of long ago... will gain a hold on his understanding and darken it."

He reinterpreted the belief that there were such things as prophecy, miracles, or supernatural occurrences.(See Spinoza's Views on Miracles) He argued that God acts solely by the laws of "his own nature". He rejected the view that God had a particular end game or purpose to advance in the course of events: to Spinoza, those who believed so were only creating a delusion for themselves out of fear.

Spinoza was not only the real father of modern metaphysics and moral and political philosophy, but also of the so-called higher criticism of the Bible. He was particularly attuned to the idea of interpretation; he felt that all organized religion was simply the institutionalized defense of particular interpretations. He rejected in its entirety the view that Moses composed the first five books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch by Christians or Torah by Jews, he provided an analysis of the structure of the Bible which demonstrated that it was essentially a compiled text with many different authors and diverse origins; in his view, it was not "revealed" all at once.

His Tractatus Theologico-Politicus undertook to show that Scriptures properly understood gave no authority for the militant intolerance of the clergy who sought to stifle all dissent by the use of force. To achieve his object, Spinoza had to show what is meant by a proper understanding of the Bible. And this gave him occasion to apply criticism to the Bible. To appreciate his services in this connection it must be remembered that his age was remarkably lacking in historical sense, especially in matters relating to religion. Saintly contemporaries like John Bunyan and Manasseh ben Israel made the most fantastic use of Scripture texts; while militant clerics, relying on the ignorant bibliolatry of the masses, misapplied Bible texts to gain their ends. Spinoza, who permitted no supernatural rival to Nature and no rival authority to the civil government of the state, rejected also all claims that Biblical literature should be treated in a manner entirely different from that in which any other document is treated that claims to be historical, his contention that the Bible "is in parts imperfect, corrupt, erroneous, and inconsistent with itself, and that we possess but fragments of it"[1] roused great storm at the time, and was mainly responsible for his evil repute for a century at least.[2] Nevertheless, many have gradually adopted his views, agreeing with him that the real "word of God", or true religion, is not something written in books but "inscribed on the heart and mind of man".[3] And many scholars and ministers of religion now praise Spinoza's services in the correct interpretation of Scripture as a document of first rate importance in the progressive development of human thought and conduct.[2]

The treatise also rejected the Jewish notion of "chosenness"; to Spinoza, all peoples are on par with each other, as God has not elevated one over the other. Spinoza also offered a sociological explanation as to how the Jewish people had managed to survive for so long, despite facing relentless persecution; in his view, the Jews had been preserved due to a combination of Gentile hatred and Jewish separatism.

He also gave one final, crucial reason for the continued Jewish presence, which in his view, was by itself sufficient to maintain the survival of the nation forever: circumcision, it was the ultimate anthropological expression of bodily marking, a tangible symbol of separateness which was the ultimate identifier.

Spinoza also posited a novel view of the Torah; he claimed that it was essentially a political constitution of the ancient state of Israel. In his view, because the state no longer existed, its constitution could no longer be valid, he argued that the Torah was thus suited to a particular time and place; because times and circumstances had changed, the Torah could no longer be regarded as a valid document.

Spinoza agreed with Thomas Hobbes that if each man had to fend for himself, with nothing but his own right arm to rely upon, then the life of man would be "nasty, brutish, and short",[4] the truly human life is only possible in an organised community, that is, a state or commonwealth. The state ensures security of life, limb and property; it brings within reach of every individual many necessaries of life which he could not produce by himself; and it sets free sufficient time and energy for the higher development of human powers. Now the existence of a state depends upon a kind of implicit agreement on the part of its members or citizens to obey the sovereign authority which governs it; in a state no one can be allowed to do just as he pleases. Every citizen is obliged to obey its laws; and he is not free even to interpret the laws in a special manner. This looks at first like a loss of freedom on the part of the individuals, and the establishment of an absolute power over them. Yet that is not really so; in the first place, without the advantages of an organised state the average individual would be so subject to dangers and hardships of all kinds and to his own passions that he could not be called free in any real sense of the term, least of all in the sense that Spinoza used it. Man needs the state not only to save him from others but also from his own lower impulses and to enable him to live a life of reason, which alone is truly human; in the second place, state sovereignty is never really absolute. It is true that almost any kind of government is better than none, so that it is worth while bearing much that is irksome rather than disturb the peace, but a reasonably wise government will even in its own interest endeavour to secure the good will and cooperation of its citizens by refraining from unreasonable measures, and will permit or even encourage its citizens to advocate reforms, provided they employ peaceable means. In this way the state really rests, in the last resort, on the united will of the citizens, on what Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who read Spinoza, subsequently called the "general will".[2]

Spinoza sometimes writes as if the state upheld absolute sovereignty, but that is due mainly to his determined opposition to every kind of ecclesiastical control over it. Though he is prepared to support what may be called a state religion, as a kind of spiritual cement, yet his account of this religion is such as to make it acceptable to the adherents of any one of the historic creeds, to deists, pantheists and all others, provided they are not fanatical believers or unbelievers. It is really in the interest of freedom of thought and speech that Spinoza would entrust the civil government with something approaching absolute sovereignty in order to effectively resist the tyranny of the militant churches.[3]

One of the most striking features in Spinoza's political theory is his basic principle that "right is might." This principle he applied systematically to the whole problem of government, and seemed rather pleased with his achievement, inasmuch as it enabled him to treat political theory in a scientific spirit, as if he were dealing with applied mathematics. The identification or correlation of right with power has caused much misunderstanding. People supposed that Spinoza reduced justice to brute force, but Spinoza was very far from approving Realpolitik. In the philosophy of Spinoza the term "power" (as should be clear from his moral philosophy) means a great deal more than physical force; in a passage near the end of his Political Treatise he states explicitly that "human power chiefly consists in strength of mind and intellect" — it consists in fact, of all the human capacities and aptitudes, especially the highest of them. Conceived correctly, Spinoza's whole philosophy leaves ample scope for ideal motives in the life of the individual and of the community.[5]

Spinoza discusses the principal kinds of states, or the main types of government, namely, Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy. Each has its own peculiarities and needs special safeguards, if it is to realise the primary function of a state. Monarchy may degenerate into Tyranny unless it is subjected to various constitutional checks which will prevent any attempt at autocracy. Similarly, Aristocracy may degenerate into Oligarchy, and needs analogous checks, on the whole, Spinoza favours Democracy, by which he meant any kind of representative government. In the case of Democracy the community and the government are more nearly identical than in the case of Monarchy or Aristocracy; consequently a democracy is least likely to experience frequent collisions between the people and the government, and so is best adapted to secure and maintain that peace which it is the business of the state to secure.[2]

It is unlikely that Spinoza's Tractatus ever had political support of any kind, with attempts being made to suppress it even before Dutch magistrate Johan de Witt's murder in 1672; in 1673, it was publicly condemned by the Synod of Dordrecht (1673) and banned officially the following year.[citation needed]

1.
Baruch Spinoza
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Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi/Portuguese origin. Spinozas magnum opus, Ethics, was published posthumously in 1677, the work opposed René Descartes philosophy on mind–body dualism, and earned Spinoza recognition as one of Western philosophys most important thinkers. In the Ethics, Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, hegel said, You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him the prince of philosophers, Spinozas given name, which means Blessed, varies among different languages. In Hebrew, it is written ברוך שפינוזה, in Portuguese, hes called Benedito Bento de Espinosa and in Latin, Benedictus de Spinoza. Spinoza was raised in a Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam and he developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. Jewish religious authorities issued a herem against him, causing him to be shunned by Jewish society at age 23. His books were later put on the Catholic Churchs Index of Forbidden Books. Spinoza lived a simple life as a lens grinder, turning down rewards and honours throughout his life. He died at the age of 44 allegedly of a lung illness and he is buried in the churchyard of the Christian Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague. The Spinoza family probably had its origins in Espinosa de los Monteros, near Burgos, or in Espinosa de Cerrato, near Palencia, the family was expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to Portugal. Portugal compelled them to convert to Catholicism in 1498, attracted by the Decree of Toleration issued in 1579 by the Union of Utrecht, Portuguese conversos first sailed to Amsterdam in 1593 and promptly reconverted to Judaism. In 1598 permission was granted to build a synagogue, and in 1615 an ordinance for the admission, as a community of exiles, the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam were highly proud of their identity. Spinozas father was born roughly a century after this conversion in the small Portuguese city of Vidigueira. When Spinozas father was still a child, Spinozas grandfather, Isaac de Spinoza and they were expelled in 1615 and moved to Rotterdam, where Isaac died in 1627. Spinozas father, Miguel, and his uncle, Manuel, then moved to Amsterdam where they resumed the practice of Judaism, Miguel was a successful merchant and became a warden of the synagogue and of the Amsterdam Jewish school. He buried three wives and three of his six children died before reaching adulthood, Amsterdam and Rotterdam operated as important cosmopolitan centres where merchant ships from many parts of the world brought people of various customs and beliefs. This flourishing commercial activity encouraged a relatively tolerant of the play of new ideas

2.
Ethics (Spinoza)
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Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, usually known as the Ethics, is a philosophical treatise written by Benedict de Spinoza. It was written between 1664 and 1665 and was first published in 1677, the book is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to apply the method of Euclid in philosophy. The first part of the addresses the relationship between God and the universe. Tradition held that God exists outside of the universe, created it for a reason, according to Spinoza, God is the natural world. As with many of Spinozas claims, what means is a matter of dispute. Spinoza claims that the things that make up the universe, including human beings, are Gods modes and this means that we and everything else are, in some sense, dependent upon God. The nature of this dependence is disputed, some scholars say that the modes are properties of God in the traditional sense. Others say that modes are effects of God, Gods creation of the universe is not a decision, much less one motivated by a purpose. The second part of the Ethics focuses on the human mind, Spinoza denies each of Descartess points. Regarding, Spinoza argues that the mind and the body are a thing that is being thought of in two different ways. The whole of nature can be described in terms of thoughts or in terms of bodies. However, we cannot mix these two ways of describing things, as Descartes does, and say that the mind affects the body or vice versa. Moreover, the minds self-knowledge is not fundamental, it know its own thoughts better than it knows the ways in which its body is acted upon by other bodies. Further, there is no difference between contemplating an idea and thinking that it is true, and there is no freedom of the will at all. Sensory perception, which Spinoza calls knowledge of the first kind, is entirely inaccurate and we can also have a kind of accurate knowledge called knowledge of the second kind, or reason. This encompasses knowledge of the common to all things, and includes principles of physics. We can also have knowledge of the kind, or intuitive knowledge. This is a sort of knowledge that, somehow, relates particular things to the nature of God, in the third part of the Ethics, Spinoza argues that all things, including human beings, strive to persevere in their being

3.
Dutch Golden Age
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The Dutch Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world. The first half is characterized by the Eighty Years War which ended in 1648, the Golden Age continued in peacetime during the Dutch Republic until the end of the century. The Netherlandss transition from a possession of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1590s to the foremost maritime, in 1568, the Seven Provinces that later signed the Union of Utrecht started a rebellion against Philip II of Spain that led to the Eighty Years War. Antwerp fell on August 17,1585 after a siege, the United Provinces fought on until the Twelve Years Truce, which did not end the hostilities. Under the terms of the surrender of Antwerp in 1585, the Protestant population were given four years to settle their affairs before leaving the city, similar arrangements were made in other places. Protestants were especially well-represented among the craftsmen and rich merchants of the port cities of Bruges, Ghent. More moved to the north between 1585 and 1630 than Catholics moved in the direction, although there were also many of these. Many of those moving north settled in Amsterdam, transforming what was a port into one of the most important ports. The Pilgrim Fathers also spent time there before their voyage to the New World, Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke contribute part of the Dutch ascendancy to its Calvinistic ethic, which promoted thrift and education. This contributed to the lowest interest rates and the highest literacy rates in Europe, several other factors also contributed to the flowering of trade, industry, the arts and the sciences in the Netherlands during this time. A necessary condition was a supply of energy from windmills and from peat. The invention of the sawmill enabled the construction of a massive fleet of ships for worldwide trading. In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was founded and it was the first-ever multinational corporation, financed by shares that established the first modern stock exchange. This company received a Dutch monopoly on Asian trade and would keep this for two centuries and it became the worlds largest commercial enterprise of the 17th century. Spices were imported in bulk and brought huge profits, due to the efforts and risks involved and this is remembered to this day in the Dutch word peperduur, meaning something is very expensive, reflecting the prices of spices at the time. To finance the trade within the region, the Bank of Amsterdam was established in 1609. According to Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, geography favored the Dutch Republic and they write, The foundations were laid by taking advantage of location, midway between the Bay of Biscay and the Baltic. The Dutch share of European shipping tonnage was enormous, well over half during most of the period of their ascendancy, from here the Dutch traded between China and Japan and paid tribute to the Shogun

4.
New Latin
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New Latin was a revival in the use of Latin in original, scholarly, and scientific works between c.1375 and c. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy and international scientific vocabulary, in such use, New Latin is often viewed as still existing and subject to new word formation. As a language for full expression in prose or poetry, however, classicists use the term Neo-Latin to describe the Latin that developed in Renaissance Italy as a result of renewed interest in classical civilization in the 14th and 15th centuries. Neo-Latin also describes the use of the Latin language for any purpose, scientific or literary, during, the term New Latin came into widespread use towards the end of the 1890s among linguists and scientists. New Latin was, at least in its days, an international language used throughout Catholic and Protestant Europe. Russias acquisition of Kiev in the later 17th century introduced the study of Latin to Russia, though Latin and New Latin are considered extinct, large parts of their vocabulary have seeped into English and several Germanic languages. New Latin was inaugurated by the triumph of the humanist reform of Latin education, led by writers as Erasmus, More. Medieval Latin had been the working language of the Roman Catholic Church, taught throughout Europe to aspiring clerics. It was a language, full of neologisms and often composed without reference to the grammar or style of classical authors. Attempts at reforming Latin use occurred sporadically throughout the period, becoming most successful in the mid-to-late 19th century, the Protestant Reformation, though it removed Latin from the liturgies of the churches of Northern Europe, may have advanced the cause of the new secular Latin. Classic works such as Newtons Principia Mathematica were written in the language, throughout this period, Latin was a universal school subject, and indeed, the pre-eminent subject for elementary education in most of Europe and other places of the world that shared its culture. All universities required Latin proficiency to obtain admittance as a student, Latin was an official language of Poland—recognised and widely used between the 9th and 18th centuries, commonly used in foreign relations and popular as a second language among some of the nobility. As an auxiliary language to the local vernaculars, New Latin appeared in a variety of documents, ecclesiastical, legal, diplomatic, academic. As late as the 1720s, Latin was still used conversationally, for instance, the Hanoverian king George I of Great Britain, who had no command of spoken English, communicated in Latin with his Prime Minister Robert Walpole, who knew neither German nor French. By about 1700, the movement for the use of national languages had reached academia, and an example of the transition is Newtons writing career. A much earlier example is Galileo c,1600, some of whose scientific writings were in Latin, some in Italian, the latter to reach a wider audience. Likewise, in the early 18th century, French replaced Latin as a diplomatic language, at the same time, some were dismissing Latin as a useless accomplishment, unfit for a man of practical affairs. The last international treaty to be written in Latin was the Treaty of Vienna in 1738, a diminishing audience combined with diminishing production of Latin texts pushed Latin into a declining spiral from which it has not recovered

5.
Censorship
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Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, Censorship could be direct or indirect, in which case it is referred to as soft censorship. Direct censorship may or may not be legal, depending on the type, location, there are no laws against self-censorship. In 399 BC, Greek philosopher, Socrates, defied attempts by the Greek state to censor his philosophical teachings and was sentenced to death by drinking a poison, hemlock. Socrates student, Plato, is said to have advocated censorship in his essay on The Republic, in contrast to Plato, Greek playwright Euripides defended the true liberty of freeborn men, including the right to speak freely. In 1766, Sweden became the first country to abolish censorship by law, the rationale for censorship is different for various types of information censored, Moral censorship is the removal of materials that are obscene or otherwise considered morally questionable. Pornography, for example, is often censored under this rationale, especially child pornography, Military censorship is the process of keeping military intelligence and tactics confidential and away from the enemy. This is used to counter espionage, which is the process of gleaning military information, political censorship occurs when governments hold back information from their citizens. This is often done to control over the populace and prevent free expression that might foment rebellion. Religious censorship is the means by which any material considered objectionable by a religion is removed. This often involves a dominant religion forcing limitations on less prevalent ones, alternatively, one religion may shun the works of another when they believe the content is not appropriate for their religion. Strict censorship existed in the Eastern Bloc, throughout the bloc, the various ministries of culture held a tight rein on their writers. Cultural products there reflected the needs of the state. Party-approved censors exercised strict control in the early years, in the Stalinist period, even the weather forecasts were changed if they suggested that the sun might not shine on May Day. Under Nicolae Ceauşescu in Romania, weather reports were doctored so that the temperatures were not seen to rise above or fall below the levels which dictated that work must stop. Independent journalism did not exist in the Soviet Union until Mikhail Gorbachev became its leader, pravda, the predominant newspaper in the Soviet Union, had a monopoly. Foreign newspapers were available if they were published by Communist Parties sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Possession and use of copying machines was tightly controlled in order to hinder production and distribution of samizdat, illegal self-published books, possession of even a single samizdat manuscript such as a book by Andrei Sinyavsky was a serious crime which might involve a visit from the KGB

6.
Religious text
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Religious texts are texts which religious traditions consider to be central to their religious practice or set of beliefs. It is not possible to create an exhaustive list of religious texts, one of the oldest known religious texts is the Kesh Temple Hymn of Ancient Sumer, a set of inscribed clay tablets which scholars typically date around 2600 BCE. For example, the content of a Protestant Bible may differ from the content of a Catholic Bible, the word canon comes from the Sumerian word meaning standard. Hierographology is the study of sacred texts, the following is an in-exhaustive list of links to specific religious texts which may be used for further, more in-depth study. The writings of Franklin Albert Jones a. k. a, some denominations also include the Apocrypha. For Protestantism, this is the 66-book canon - the Jewish Tanakh of 24 books divided differently, some denominations also include the 15 books of the Apocrypha between the Old Testament and the New Testament, for a total of 81 books. For Catholicism, this includes seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament for a total of 73 books, called the Canon of Trent. For the Eastern Orthodox Church, this includes the anagignoskomena, which consist of the Catholic deuterocanon, plus 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh,4 Maccabees is considered to be canonical by the Georgian Orthodox Church. Some Syriac churches accept the Letter of Baruch as scripture, christian Scientists The Bible Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This textbook, along with the Bible, serves as the permanent impersonal pastor of the church, the Community of Christ uses the Joseph Smith Translation, which it calls the Inspired Version, as well as updated modern translations. Seventh-day Adventists The Bible The writings of Ellen White are held to a status, though not equal with the Bible. Also known as the Gospel of Mani and The Living Gospel the Treasure of Life the Pragmateia the Book of Mysteries The Book of Giants the Epistles the Psalms, the Shabuhragan The Arzhang The Kephalaia, Discourses, found in Coptic translation. Odù Ifá Jaap Verduijns Odu Ifa Collection Primary religious texts, that is, the Avesta collection, The Yasna, the Visperad, a collection of supplements to the Yasna. The Yashts, hymns in honor of the divinities, the Vendidad, describes the various forms of evil spirits and ways to confound them. Shorter texts and prayers, the Yashts the five Nyaishes, the Sirozeh, there are some 60 secondary religious texts, none of which are considered scripture. The Khordeh Avesta, Zoroastrian prayer book for lay people from the Avesta, religious full text online library Ancient texts library Internet Sacred Text Archive

7.
Miracle
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A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being, magic, a miracle worker, other such miracles might be, survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal, escaping a life-threatening situation or beating the odds. Some coincidences may be seen as miracles, a true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many rational and scientific thinkers to dismiss them as physically impossible or impossible to confirm by their nature. The former position is expressed for instance by Thomas Jefferson and the latter by David Hume, theologians typically say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through nature yet, as a creator, is free to work without, above, or against it as well. The possibility and probability of miracles are then equal to the possibility and probability of the existence of God, a miracle is a phenomenon not explained by known laws of nature. Criteria for classifying an event as a miracle vary, often a religious text, such as the Bible or Quran, states that a miracle occurred, and believers may accept this as a fact. British mathematician J. E. Littlewood suggested that individuals should statistically expect one-in-a-million events to happen to them at the rate of one per month. By Littlewoods definition, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace, the Aristotelian view of God does not include direct intervention in the order of the natural world. Jewish neo-Aristotelian philosophers, who are influential today, include Maimonides, Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon. Directly or indirectly, their views are still prevalent in much of the religious Jewish community, in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Spinoza claims that miracles are merely lawlike events whose causes we are ignorant of. We should not treat them as having no cause or of having a cause immediately available, rather the miracle is for combating the ignorance it entails, like a political project. According to the philosopher David Hume, a miracle is a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent. According to the Christian theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher every event, even the most natural and usual, james Keller states that The claim that God has worked a miracle implies that God has singled out certain persons for some benefit which many others do not receive implies that God is unfair. If God intervenes to save life in a car crash. Thus an all-powerful, all-knowing and just God, as predicated in Christianity, the Haedong Kosung-jon of Korea records that King Beopheung of Silla had desired to promulgate Buddhism as the state religion. However, officials in his court opposed him, in the fourteenth year of his reign, Beopheungs Grand Secretary, Ichadon, devised a strategy to overcome court opposition. Ichadon schemed with the king, convincing him to make a proclamation granting Buddhism official state sanction using the royal seal, Ichadon told the king to deny having made such a proclamation when the opposing officials received it and demanded an explanation. Instead, Ichadon would confess and accept the punishment of execution, Ichadon prophesied to the king that at his execution a wonderful miracle would convince the opposing court faction of Buddhisms power

8.
Eschatology
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Eschatology /ˌɛskəˈtɒlədʒi/ is a part of theology concerned with the final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity. This concept is referred to as the end of the world or end time. The word arises from the Greek ἔσχατος eschatos meaning last and -logy meaning the study of, the Oxford English Dictionary defines eschatology as The part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind. In the context of mysticism, the phrase refers metaphorically to the end of ordinary reality, in many religions it is taught as an existing future event prophesied in sacred texts or folklore. More broadly, eschatology may encompass related concepts such as the Messiah or Messianic Age, the end time, history is often divided into ages, which are time periods each with certain commonalities. One age comes to an end and a new age or world to come, where different realities are present, begins. When such transitions from one age to another are the subject of eschatological discussion, the phrase, end of the world, is replaced by end of the age, end of an era, or end of life as we know it. Much apocalyptic fiction does not deal with the end of time but rather with the end of a period of time, the end of life as it is now. It is usually a crisis that brings an end to current reality and ushers in a new way of living, thinking, or being. This crisis may take the form of the intervention of a deity in history, a war, eschatologies vary as to their degree of optimism or pessimism about the future. In some eschatologies, conditions are better for some and worse for others, e. g. heaven, in Baháí belief, creation has neither a beginning nor an end. Instead, the eschatology of other religions is viewed as symbolic, in Baháí belief, human time is marked by a series of progressive revelations in which successive messengers or prophets come from God. In this view, the heaven and hell are seen as symbolic terms for the persons spiritual progress. In Baháí belief, the coming of Baháulláh, the founder of the Baháí Faith, signals the fulfilment of previous eschatological expectations of Islam, Christianity and other major religions. Christian eschatology is concerned with death, a state, Heaven, hell, the return of Jesus. Eschatological passages are found in places, esp. Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Matthew 24, The Sheep and the Goats, and the Book of Revelation, the Second Coming of Christ is the central event in Christian eschatology. Most Christians believe that death and suffering will continue to exist until Christs return, there are, however, various views concerning the order and significance of other eschatological events

9.
Fear
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Fear in human beings may occur in response to a specific stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to body or life. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat, in humans and animals, fear is modulated by the process of cognition and learning. Thus fear is judged as rational or appropriate and irrational or inappropriate, an irrational fear is called a phobia. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested there is only a small set of basic or innate emotions. This hypothesized set includes such emotions as acute stress reaction, anger, angst, anxiety, fright, horror, joy, panic, and sadness. Fear is closely related to, but should be distinguished from, the emotion anxiety, the fear response serves survival by generating appropriate behavioral responses, so it has been preserved throughout evolution. Many physiological changes in the body are associated with fear, summarized as the fight-or-flight response and this primitive mechanism may help an organism survive by either running away or fighting the danger. With the series of changes, the consciousness realizes an emotion of fear. People develop specific fears as a result of learning and this has been studied in psychology as fear conditioning, beginning with John B. Watsons Little Albert experiment in 1920, which was inspired after observing a child with a fear of dogs. In this study, an 11-month-old boy was conditioned to fear a white rat in the laboratory, the fear became generalized to include other white, furry objects, such as a rabbit, dog, and even a ball of cotton. Fear can be learned by experiencing or watching a frightening traumatic accident, for example, if a child falls into a well and struggles to get out, he or she may develop a fear of wells, heights, enclosed spaces, or water. There are studies looking at areas of the brain that are affected in relation to fear, when looking at these areas, it was proposed that a person learns to fear regardless of whether they themselves have experienced trauma, or if they have observed the fear in others. In a study completed by Andreas Olsson, Katherine I and this suggests that fear can develop in both conditions, not just simply from personal history. Fear is affected by cultural and historical context, for example, in the early 20th century, many Americans feared polio, a disease that can lead to paralysis. There are consistent cross-cultural differences in how people respond to fear, display rules affect how likely people are to show the facial expression of fear and other emotions. Although many fears are learned, the capacity to fear is part of human nature, many studies have found that certain fears are much more common than others. These fears are also easier to induce in the laboratory and this phenomenon is known as preparedness

10.
Ethics
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Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from the Ancient Greek word ἠθικός ethikos, the branch of philosophy axiology comprises the sub-branches of ethics and aesthetics, each concerned with values. As a branch of philosophy, ethics investigates the questions What is the best way for people to live, and What actions are right or wrong in particular circumstances. In practice, ethics seeks to resolve questions of morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice. As a field of enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics. Richard William Paul and Linda Elder define ethics as a set of concepts, the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word ethics is commonly used interchangeably with morality. And sometimes it is used narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition. Paul and Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, the word ethics in English refers to several things. It can refer to philosophical ethics or moral philosophy—a project that attempts to use reason in order to various kinds of ethical questions. As bioethicist Larry Churchill has written, Ethics, understood as the capacity to think critically about moral values, Ethics can also be used to describe a particular persons own idiosyncratic principles or habits. For example, Joe has strange ethics, the English word ethics is derived from an Ancient Greek word êthikos, which means relating to ones character. The Ancient Greek adjective êthikos is itself derived from another Greek word, meta-ethics asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong. An ethical question fixed on some particular practical question—such as, Should I eat this particular piece of chocolate cake. —cannot be a meta-ethical question, a meta-ethical question is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific practical questions. For example, Is it ever possible to have knowledge of what is right. Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics, meta-ethics is also important in G. E. In it he first wrote about what he called the naturalistic fallacy, moore was seen to reject naturalism in ethics, in his Open Question Argument. This made thinkers look again at second order questions about ethics, earlier, the Scottish philosopher David Hume had put forward a similar view on the difference between facts and values. Studies of how we know in ethics divide into cognitivism and non-cognitivism, non-cognitivism is the claim that when we judge something as right or wrong, this is neither true nor false

11.
Political philosophy
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In a vernacular sense, the term political philosophy often refers to a general view, or specific ethic, political belief or attitude, about politics, synonymous to the term political ideology. Chinese political philosophy dates back to the Spring and Autumn period, Chinese political philosophy was developed as a response to the social and political breakdown of the country characteristic of the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. The major philosophies during the period, Confucianism, Legalism, Mohism, Agrarianism and Taoism, philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius, and Mozi, focused on political unity and political stability as the basis of their political philosophies. Confucianism advocated a hierarchical, meritocratic government based on empathy, loyalty, Legalism advocated a highly authoritarian government based on draconian punishments and laws. Mohism advocated a communal, decentralized government centered on frugality and ascetism, the Agrarians advocated a peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism. Legalism was the dominant political philosophy of the Qin Dynasty, but was replaced by State Confucianism in the Han Dynasty, prior to Chinas adoption of communism, State Confucianism remained the dominant political philosophy of China up to the 20th century. Western political philosophy originates in the philosophy of ancient Greece, where political philosophy dates back to at least Plato, ancient Greece was dominated by city-states, which experimented with various forms of political organization, grouped by Plato into four categories, timocracy, tyranny, democracy and oligarchy. One of the first, extremely important classical works of philosophy is Platos Republic. Roman political philosophy was influenced by the Stoics and the Roman statesman Cicero, Indian political philosophy evolved in ancient times and demarcated a clear distinction between nation and state religion and state. The constitutions of Hindu states evolved over time and were based on political and legal treatises, the institutions of state were broadly divided into governance, administration, defense, law and order. Mantranga, the governing body of these states, consisted of the King, Prime Minister, Commander in chief of army. The Prime Minister headed the committee of ministers along with head of executive, chanakya, 4th century BC Indian political philosopher. Another influential extant Indian treatise on philosophy is the Sukra Neeti. An example of a code of law in ancient India is the Manusmṛti or Laws of Manu, the early Christian philosophy of Augustine of Hippo was heavily influenced by Plato. Augustine also preached that one was not a member of his or her city, augustines City of God is an influential work of this period that attacked the thesis, held by many Christian Romans, that the Christian view could be realized on Earth. Thomas Aquinas meticulously dealt with the varieties of law, according to Aquinas, there are four kinds of law, Eternal law Divine positive law Natural law Human law Aquinas never discusses the nature or categorization of canon law. There is scholarly debate surrounding the place of law within the Thomistic jurisprudential framework. Aquinas was an influential thinker in the Natural Law tradition

12.
Moses
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Moses is a prophet in Abrahamic religions. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew, he is the most important prophet in Judaism and he is also an important prophet in Christianity, Islam, the Baháí Faith as well as a number of other Abrahamic religions. Moses Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites. Through the Pharaohs daughter, the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile river and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak with assurance or eloquence, so God allowed Aaron, his brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land on Mount Nebo. According to archaeologist William G. Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE, Jerome gives 1592 BCE, the Biblical account of Moses birth provides him with a folk etymology to explain the ostensible meaning of his name. He is said to have received it from the Pharaohs daughter and she named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water. This explanation links it to a verb mashah, meaning to draw out, the princess made a grammatical mistake which is prophetic of his future role in legend, as someone who will draw the people of Israel out of Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea. Abraham Yahuda, based on the spelling given in the Tanakh, argues that it combines water or seed and pond, expanse of water, the Hebrew etymology in the Biblical story may reflect an attempt to cancel out traces of Moses Egyptian origins. The Egyptian character of his name was recognized as such by ancient Jewish writers like Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. Philo linked Mōēsēs to the Egyptian word for water, while Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, claimed that the element, -esês. Hizkuni suggested she either converted or took a tip from Jochebed, the Israelites had settled in the Land of Goshen in the time of Joseph and Jacob, but a new pharaoh arose who oppressed the children of Israel. At this time Moses was born to his father Amram, son of Kehath the Levite, who entered Egypt with Jacobs household, his mother was Jochebed, Moses had one older sister, Miriam, and one older brother, Aaron. One day after Moses had reached adulthood he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, Moses, in order to escape the Pharaohs death penalty, fled to Midian. There, on Mount Horeb, God revealed to Moses his name YHWH and commanded him to return to Egypt and bring his people out of bondage. Moses returned to carry out Gods command, but God caused the Pharaoh to refuse, from Egypt, Moses led the Israelites to biblical Mount Sinai, where he was given the Ten Commandments from God, written on stone tablets

13.
Torah
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The Torah is the central reference of Judaism. It has a range of meanings and it can most specifically mean the first five books of the twenty-four books of the Tanakh, and it usually includes the rabbinic commentaries. In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the five books and the Oral Torah, the Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to generation and are now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash. According to the Midrash, the Torah was created prior to the creation of the world, traditionally, the words of the Torah are written on a scroll by a scribe in Hebrew. A Torah portion is read publicly at least once every three days in the presence of a congregation, reading the Torah publicly is one of the bases for Jewish communal life. The word Torah in Hebrew is derived from the root ירה, the meaning of the word is therefore teaching, doctrine, or instruction, the commonly accepted law gives a wrong impression. Other translational contexts in the English language include custom, theory, guidance, the earliest name for the first part of the Bible seems to have been The Torah of Moses. This title, however, is neither in the Torah itself. It appears in Joshua and Kings, but it cannot be said to refer there to the entire corpus, in contrast, there is every likelihood that its use in the post-Exilic works was intended to be comprehensive. Other early titles were The Book of Moses and The Book of the Torah, Christian scholars usually refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as the Pentateuch, a term first used in the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria, meaning five books, or as the Law. The Torah starts from the beginning of Gods creating the world, through the beginnings of the people of Israel, their descent into Egypt, and it ends with the death of Moses, just before the people of Israel cross to the promised land of Canaan. Interspersed in the narrative are the teachings given explicitly or implicitly embedded in the narrative. This is followed by the story of the three patriarchs, Joseph and the four matriarchs, God gives to the patriarchs a promise of the land of Canaan, but at the end of Genesis the sons of Jacob end up leaving Canaan for Egypt due to a regional famine. They had heard there was a grain storage and distribution facility in Egypt. Exodus begins the story of Gods revelation to his people of Israel through Moses, Moses receives the Torah from God, and teaches His laws and Covenant to the people of Israel. It also talks about the first violation of the covenant when the Golden Calf was constructed, Exodus includes the instructions on building the Tabernacle and concludes with its actual construction. Leviticus begins with instructions to the Israelites on how to use the Tabernacle, leviticus 26 provides a detailed list of rewards for following Gods commandments and a detailed list of punishments for not following them. Numbers tells how Israel consolidated itself as a community at Sinai, set out from Sinai to move towards Canaan, even Moses sins and is told he would not live to enter the land

14.
Scriptures
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Religious texts are texts which religious traditions consider to be central to their religious practice or set of beliefs. It is not possible to create an exhaustive list of religious texts, one of the oldest known religious texts is the Kesh Temple Hymn of Ancient Sumer, a set of inscribed clay tablets which scholars typically date around 2600 BCE. For example, the content of a Protestant Bible may differ from the content of a Catholic Bible, the word canon comes from the Sumerian word meaning standard. Hierographology is the study of sacred texts, the following is an in-exhaustive list of links to specific religious texts which may be used for further, more in-depth study. The writings of Franklin Albert Jones a. k. a, some denominations also include the Apocrypha. For Protestantism, this is the 66-book canon - the Jewish Tanakh of 24 books divided differently, some denominations also include the 15 books of the Apocrypha between the Old Testament and the New Testament, for a total of 81 books. For Catholicism, this includes seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament for a total of 73 books, called the Canon of Trent. For the Eastern Orthodox Church, this includes the anagignoskomena, which consist of the Catholic deuterocanon, plus 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh,4 Maccabees is considered to be canonical by the Georgian Orthodox Church. Some Syriac churches accept the Letter of Baruch as scripture, christian Scientists The Bible Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This textbook, along with the Bible, serves as the permanent impersonal pastor of the church, the Community of Christ uses the Joseph Smith Translation, which it calls the Inspired Version, as well as updated modern translations. Seventh-day Adventists The Bible The writings of Ellen White are held to a status, though not equal with the Bible. Also known as the Gospel of Mani and The Living Gospel the Treasure of Life the Pragmateia the Book of Mysteries The Book of Giants the Epistles the Psalms, the Shabuhragan The Arzhang The Kephalaia, Discourses, found in Coptic translation. Odù Ifá Jaap Verduijns Odu Ifa Collection Primary religious texts, that is, the Avesta collection, The Yasna, the Visperad, a collection of supplements to the Yasna. The Yashts, hymns in honor of the divinities, the Vendidad, describes the various forms of evil spirits and ways to confound them. Shorter texts and prayers, the Yashts the five Nyaishes, the Sirozeh, there are some 60 secondary religious texts, none of which are considered scripture. The Khordeh Avesta, Zoroastrian prayer book for lay people from the Avesta, religious full text online library Ancient texts library Internet Sacred Text Archive

15.
John Bunyan
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John Bunyan was an English writer and Puritan preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory The Pilgrims Progress. In addition to The Pilgrims Progress, Bunyan wrote nearly sixty titles, Bunyan came from the village of Elstow, near Bedford. He had some schooling and at the age of sixteen joined the Parliamentary army during the first stage of the English Civil War, after three years in the army he returned to Elstow and took up the trade of tinker, which he had learned from his father. He became interested in religion after his marriage, attending first the church and then joining the Bedford Meeting, a nonconformist group in Bedford. After the restoration of the monarch, when the freedom of nonconformists was curtailed, Bunyan was arrested, Bunyans later years, in spite of another shorter term of imprisonment, were spent in relative comfort as a popular author and preacher, and pastor of the Bedford Meeting. He died aged 59 after falling ill on a journey to London and is buried in Bunhill Fields, the Pilgrims Progress became one of the most published books in the English language,1,300 editions having been printed by 1938,250 years after the authors death. He is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, Some other churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the Anglican Church of Australia, honour him on the day of his death. John Bunyan was born in 1628 to Thomas and Margaret Bunyan at Bunyans End in the parish of Elstow, Bunyans End is located about halfway between the hamlet of Harrowden and Elstow High Street. Bunyans date of birth is not known, but he was baptised on 30 November 1628, the name Bunyan was spelt in many different ways and had its origins in the Norman-French name Buignon. There had been Bunyans in north Bedfordshire since at least 1199, Bunyans father was a brazier or tinker who travelled around the area mending pots and pans, and his grandfather had been a chapman or small trader. As a child Bunyan learned his fathers trade of tinker and was given some rudimentary schooling, in the summer of 1644 Bunyan lost both his mother and his sister Margaret. That autumn, shortly before or after his birthday, Bunyan enlisted in the Parliamentary army when an edict demanded 225 recruits from the town of Bedford. There are few details available about his service, which took place during the first stage of the English Civil War. A muster roll for the garrison of Newport Pagnell shows him as private John Bunnian, Bunyan spent nearly three years in the army, leaving in 1647 to return to Elstow and his trade as a tinker. His father had remarried and had children and Bunyan moved from Bunyans End to a cottage in Elstow High Street. Within two years of leaving the army, Bunyan married and he also recalled that, apart from these two books, the newly-weds possessed little, not having so much household-stuff as a Dish or a Spoon betwixt us both. The couples first daughter, Mary, was born in 1650 and they would have three more children, Elizabeth, Thomas and John. By his own account, Bunyan had as a youth enjoyed bell-ringing, dancing and playing games including on Sunday, thought by many to be the Sabbath, one Sunday the vicar of Elstow preached a sermon against Sabbath breaking, and Bunyan took this sermon to heart

16.
Menasseh Ben Israel
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Menasseh was born on Madeira Island in 1604, with the name Manoel Dias Soeiro, a year after his parents had left mainland Portugal because of the Inquisition. The family moved to the Netherlands in 1610, the Netherlands was in the middle of a process of religious revolt against Catholic Spanish rule throughout the Eighty Years War. Amsterdam was an important center of Jewish life in Europe at this time, the familys arrival in 1610 was during the Twelve Years Truce mediated by France and England at The Hague. Menasseh rose to eminence not only as a rabbi and an author and he established the first Hebrew press in Holland. One of his earliest works, El Conciliador, published in 1632, won immediate reputation, among his correspondents were Gerardus Vossius, Hugo Grotius, António Vieira and Pierre Daniel Huet. In 1638, he decided to settle in Brazil, as he found it difficult to provide for his wife. He may have visited the Dutch colonys capital of Recife, one of the reasons his financial situation improved in Amsterdam was the arrival of two Portuguese Jewish entrepreneurs, the brothers Abraham and Isaac Pereyra. They hired Rabbi Manasseh to direct a small college or academy they had founded in the city, in 1644, Menasseh met Antonio de Montezinos, a Portuguese traveler and Marrano Sephardic Jew who had been in the New World. Montezinos convinced him of his conclusion that the South America Andes Indians were the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. This purported discovery gave a new impulse to Menassehs Messianic hopes, filled with this idea, he turned his attention to England, whence the Jews had been expelled since 1290. He worked to get permission to settle there again and thus hasten the Messiahs coming. With the start of the Commonwealth, the question of the readmission of the Jews had found increased Protestant support, in addition, Messianic and other mystic hopes were then current in England. His book, the Hope of Israel, had first been published in Amsterdam in Hebrew, in 1651 he offered to serve Christina, Queen of Sweden as her agent of Hebrew books. And do we not see that those Republiques do flourish and much increase in trade who admit the Israelites, at this juncture, the English gave Jews full rights in the colony of Surinam, which they had controlled since 1650. In 1655, Menasseh arrived in London, during his absence from the Netherlands, the Amsterdam rabbis excommunicated his student, Baruch Spinoza. In London, Menasseh published his Humble Addresses to the Lord Protector, Cromwell summoned the Whitehall Conference in December of the same year. Some of the most notable statesmen, lawyers, and theologians of the day were summoned to this conference to discuss whether the Jews should be readmitted to England. The chief practical result was the declaration of judges Glynne and Steele that there was no law which forbade the Jews return to England, though nothing was done to regularize the position of the Jews, the door was opened to their gradual return

17.
Nature
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Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, or material world or universe. Nature can refer to the phenomena of the world. The study of nature is a part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or essential qualities, innate disposition, and in ancient times, literally meant birth. Natura is a Latin translation of the Greek word physis, which related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals. This usage continued during the advent of scientific method in the last several centuries. Within the various uses of the word today, nature often refers to geology, for example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, human nature or the whole of nature. Depending on the context, the term natural might also be distinguished from the unnatural or the supernatural. Earth is the planet known to support life, and its natural features are the subject of many fields of scientific research. Within the solar system, it is third closest to the sun, it is the largest terrestrial planet and its most prominent climatic features are its two large polar regions, two relatively narrow temperate zones, and a wide equatorial tropical to subtropical region. Precipitation varies widely with location, from several metres of water per year to less than a millimetre,71 percent of the Earths surface is covered by salt-water oceans. The remainder consists of continents and islands, with most of the land in the Northern Hemisphere. Earth has evolved through geological and biological processes that have left traces of the original conditions, the outer surface is divided into several gradually migrating tectonic plates. The interior remains active, with a layer of plastic mantle. This iron core is composed of a solid phase. Convective motion in the core generates electric currents through dynamo action, the atmospheric conditions have been significantly altered from the original conditions by the presence of life-forms, which create an ecological balance that stabilizes the surface conditions. Geology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth, the geology of an area evolves through time as rock units are deposited and inserted and deformational processes change their shapes and locations

18.
Sociology
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Sociology is the study of social behaviour or society, including its origins, development, organisation, networks, and institutions. It is a science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order, disorder. Many sociologists aim to research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare. Subject matter ranges from the level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems. The traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, the range of social scientific methods has also expanded. Social researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques, the linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-twentieth century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of society. There is often a great deal of crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields, Sociology is distinguished from various general social studies courses, which bear little relation to sociological theory or to social-science research-methodology. The US National Science Foundation classifies sociology as a STEM field, Sociological reasoning pre-dates the foundation of the discipline. Social analysis has origins in the stock of Western knowledge and philosophy. The origin of the survey, i. e, there is evidence of early sociology in medieval Arab writings. The word sociology is derived from both Latin and Greek origins, the Latin word, socius, companion, the suffix -logy, the study of from Greek -λογία from λόγος, lógos, word, knowledge. It was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès in an unpublished manuscript, Sociology was later defined independently by the French philosopher of science, Auguste Comte, in 1838. Comte used this term to describe a new way of looking at society, Comte had earlier used the term social physics, but that had subsequently been appropriated by others, most notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet. Comte endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the understanding of the social realm. Comte believed a positivist stage would mark the final era, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases, Comte gave a powerful impetus to the development of sociology, an impetus which bore fruit in the later decades of the nineteenth century. To say this is not to claim that French sociologists such as Durkheim were devoted disciples of the high priest of positivism. To be sure, beginnings can be traced back well beyond Montesquieu, for example, Marx rejected Comtean positivism but in attempting to develop a science of society nevertheless came to be recognized as a founder of sociology as the word gained wider meaning. For Isaiah Berlin, Marx may be regarded as the father of modern sociology

19.
Separatism
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A common definition of separatism is that it is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy. There is some debate about this definition, and in particular how it relates to secessionism. Separatist groups practice a form of identity politics, political activity, such groups believe attempts at integration with dominant groups compromise their identity and ability to pursue greater self-determination. However, economic and political factors usually are critical in creating strong separatist movements as opposed to less ambitious identity movements, groups may have one or more motivations for separation, including, emotional resentment and hatred of rival communities. Protection from ethnic cleansing and genocide, resistance by victims of oppression, including denigration of their language, culture or religion. Propaganda by those who hope to gain politically from intergroup conflict, Economic and political dominance of one group that does not share power and privilege in an egalitarian fashion. Economic motivations, seeking to end exploitation by more powerful group or, conversely. Preservation of threatened religious, language or other cultural tradition, destabilization from one separatist movement giving rise to others. Geopolitical power vacuum from breakup of larger states or empires, continuing fragmentation as more and more states break up. Feeling that the nation was added to the larger state by illegitimate means. The perception that the state can no longer support ones own group or has betrayed their interests, governments may respond in a number of ways, some of which are mutually exclusive. Settle for a confederation or a relationship where there are only limited ties among states. Some governments suppress any separatist movement in their own country, Ethnic separatism is based more on cultural and linguistic differences than religious or racial differences, which also may exist. Chechen separatism in the Caucasus, currently the Republic of Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation, serb separatism in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. Albanian separatism in Kosovo and R. Macedonia Turkish separatism in Cyprus, South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatism in Georgia. Armenian separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, azeri separatists in Iran want to unite the provinces of East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Zanjan and Ardabil with Azerbaijan. Kurdish separatism in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, silesian separatism in Poland and Czech Republic

20.
Anthropology
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Anthropology is the study of various aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology and cultural anthropology study the norms and values of societies, linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the development of humans. The abstract noun anthropology is first attested in reference to history and its present use first appeared in Renaissance Germany in the works of Magnus Hundt and Otto Casmann. Their New Latin anthropologia derived from the forms of the Greek words ánthrōpos and lógos. It began to be used in English, possibly via French anthropologie, various short-lived organizations of anthropologists had already been formed. The Société Ethnologique de Paris, the first to use Ethnology, was formed in 1839 and its members were primarily anti-slavery activists. When slavery was abolished in France in 1848 the Société was abandoned and these anthropologists of the times were liberal, anti-slavery, and pro-human-rights activists. Anthropology and many other current fields are the results of the comparative methods developed in the earlier 19th century. For them, the publication of Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species was the epiphany of everything they had begun to suspect, Darwin himself arrived at his conclusions through comparison of species he had seen in agronomy and in the wild. Darwin and Wallace unveiled evolution in the late 1850s, there was an immediate rush to bring it into the social sciences. When he read Darwin he became a convert to Transformisme. His definition now became the study of the group, considered as a whole, in its details. Broca, being what today would be called a neurosurgeon, had taken an interest in the pathology of speech and he wanted to localize the difference between man and the other animals, which appeared to reside in speech. He discovered the speech center of the brain, today called Brocas area after him. The title was translated as The Anthropology of Primitive Peoples. The last two volumes were published posthumously, Waitz defined anthropology as the science of the nature of man. By nature he meant matter animated by the Divine breath, i. e. he was an animist and he stresses that the data of comparison must be empirical, gathered by experimentation

21.
History of ancient Israel and Judah
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Israel and Judah were related Iron Age kingdoms of the ancient Levant. The Kingdom of Israel emerged as an important local power by the 10th century BCE before falling to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE and this, the last nominally independent Judean kingdom, came to an end in 63 BCE with its conquest by Pompey of Rome. East of the plain and the Shephelah is a ridge, the hill country of Judah in the south, the hill country of Ephraim north of that, then Galilee. To the east again lie the valley occupied by the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the wadi of the Arabah. Beyond the plateau is the Syrian desert, separating the Levant from Mesopotamia, to the southwest is Egypt, to the northeast Mesopotamia. The location and geographical characteristics of the narrow Levant made the area a battleground among the entities that surrounded it. Politically and culturally it was dominated by Egypt, each city under its own ruler, constantly at odds with its neighbours, and appealing to the Egyptians to adjudicate their differences. The Canaanite city-state system broke down at the end of the Late Bronze period, the name Israel first appears in the stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah c.1209 BCE, Israel is laid waste and his seed is no more. In the Late Bronze Age there were no more than about 25 villages in the highlands, the villages were more numerous and larger in the north, and probably shared the highlands with pastoral nomads, who left no remains. Other Aramaean sites also demonstrate a contemporary absence of pig remains at that time, unlike earlier Canaanite, in The Bible Unearthed, Finkelstein and Silberman summarised recent studies. They described how, up until 1967, the Israelite heartland in the highlands of western Palestine was virtually an archaeological terra incognita, since then, intensive surveys have examined the traditional territories of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. These surveys have revealed the emergence of a new culture contrasting with the Philistine. This new culture is characterised by a lack of remains, by an abandonment of the Philistine/Canaanite custom of having highly decorated pottery. The Israelite ethnic identity had originated, not from the Exodus and a subsequent conquest and these surveys revolutionized the study of early Israel. There was no sign of violent invasion or even the infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group, instead, it seemed to be a revolution in lifestyle. From then on, over a period of hundreds of years until after the return of the exiles from Babylon, after the period of Ezra there is no more biblical record of them. The Hebrew language, a dialect of Canaanite, became the language of the hill country, modern scholars therefore see Israel arising peacefully and internally from existing people in the highlands of Canaan. Unusually favourable climatic conditions in the first two centuries of Iron Age II brought about an expansion of population, settlements and trade throughout the region

22.
Thomas Hobbes
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Thomas Hobbes, in some older texts Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, was an English philosopher who is considered one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, which established the social theory that has served as the foundation for most later Western political philosophy. Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport, now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, born prematurely when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish Armada, Hobbes later reported that my mother gave birth to twins, myself and fear. His childhood is almost completely unknown, and his mothers name is unknown and his father, Thomas Sr. was the vicar of Charlton and Westport. Thomas Hobbes, the younger, had a brother Edmund, about two years older, and a sister, Thomas Sr. was involved in a fight with the local clergy outside his church, forcing him to leave London and abandon the family. The family was left in the care of Thomas Sr. s older brother, Francis, Hobbes was a good pupil, and around 1603 he went up to Magdalen Hall, the predecessor college to Hertford College, Oxford. The principal John Wilkinson was a Puritan, and he had influence on Hobbes. At university, Hobbes appears to have followed his own curriculum and he did not complete his B. A. Hobbes became a companion to the younger William and they both took part in a grand tour of Europe in 1610. Hobbes was exposed to European scientific and critical methods during the tour and it has been argued that three of the discourses in the 1620 publication known as Horea Subsecivae, Observations and Discourses, also represent the work of Hobbes from this period. Although he associated with figures like Ben Jonson and briefly worked as Francis Bacons amanuensis. His employer Cavendish, then the Earl of Devonshire, died of the plague in June 1628, the widowed countess dismissed Hobbes but he soon found work, again as a tutor, this time to Gervase Clifton, the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, 1st Baronet. This task, chiefly spent in Paris, ended in 1631 when he found work with the Cavendish family, tutoring William. Over the next seven years, as well as tutoring, he expanded his own knowledge of philosophy and he visited Florence in 1636 and was later a regular debater in philosophic groups in Paris, held together by Marin Mersenne. Hobbess first area of study was an interest in the doctrine of motion. Despite his interest in this phenomenon, he disdained experimental work as in physics and he went on to conceive the system of thought to the elaboration of which he would devote his life. He then singled out Man from the realm of Nature and plants, finally he considered, in his crowning treatise, how Men were moved to enter into society, and argued how this must be regulated if Men were not to fall back into brutishness and misery. Thus he proposed to unite the separate phenomena of Body, Man, Hobbes came home, in 1637, to a country riven with discontent which disrupted him from the orderly execution of his philosophic plan. However, by the end of the Short Parliament in 1640, he had written a treatise called The Elements of Law, Natural

23.
State (polity)
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A state is a type of polity that is an organized political community living under a single system of government. States may or may not be sovereign, for instance, federated states are members of a federal union, and may have only partial sovereignty, but are, nonetheless, states. Some states are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony, in which ultimate sovereignty lies in another state, States that are sovereign are known as sovereign states. The term state can also refer to the branches of government within a state, often as a manner of contrasting them with churches. Speakers of American English often use the state and government as synonyms. Many human societies have been governed by states for millennia, over time a variety of different forms developed, employing a variety of justifications of legitimacy for their existence. In the 21st century, the modern nation-state is the predominant form of state to which people are subjected, there is no academic consensus on the most appropriate definition of the state. The term state refers to a set of different, but interrelated and often overlapping, general categories of state institutions include administrative bureaucracies, legal systems, and military or religious organizations. Another commonly accepted definition of the state is the one given at the Montevideo Convention on Rights, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a state is a. an organized political community under one government, a commonwealth, a nation. B. such a community forming part of a federal republic, confounding the definition problem is that state and government are often used as synonyms in common conversation and even some academic discourse. According to this schema, the states are nonphysical persons of international law. The relationship between a government and its state is one of representation and authorized agency, States may be classified as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Other states are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony where ultimate sovereignty lies in another state, many states are federated states which participate in a federal union. A federated state is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation, such states differ from sovereign states in that they have transferred a portion of their sovereign powers to a federal government. One can commonly and sometimes readily classify states according to their apparent make-up or focus, the concept of the nation-state, theoretically or ideally co-terminous with a nation, became very popular by the 20th century in Europe, but occurred rarely elsewhere or at other times. Imperial states have sometimes promoted notions of racial superiority, the concept of temple states centred on religious shrines occurs in some discussions of the ancient world. To some extent, urban secession, the creation of a new city-state, a state can be distinguished from a government. The government is the group of people, the administrative bureaucracy that controls the state apparatus at a given time

24.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution, Rousseaus novel Emile, or On Education is a treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. His sentimental novel Julie, or the New Heloise was of importance to the development of pre-romanticism and romanticism in fiction and his Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophes among members of the Jacobin Club and he was interred as a national hero in the Panthéon in Paris, in 1794,16 years after his death. Rousseau was born in Geneva, which was at the time a city-state, since 1536, Geneva had been a Huguenot republic and the seat of Calvinism. Rousseau was proud that his family, of the order, had voting rights in the city. Throughout his life, he signed his books Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Geneva, in theory, was governed democratically by its male voting citizens, the citizens were a minority of the population when compared to the immigrants, referred to as inhabitants, whose descendants were called natives and continued to lack suffrage. There was much debate within Geneva, extending down to the tradespeople. Much discussion was over the idea of the sovereignty of the people, in 1707, a democratic reformer named Pierre Fatio protested this situation, saying a sovereign that never performs an act of sovereignty is an imaginary being. He was shot by order of the Little Council, Jean-Jacques Rousseaus father, Isaac, was not in the city at this time, but Jean-Jacquess grandfather supported Fatio and was penalized for it. The trade of watchmaking had become a tradition by the time of Rousseaus father. Isaac followed his grandfather, father and brothers into the business, Isaac, notwithstanding his artisan status, was well educated and a lover of music. A Genevan watchmaker, Rousseau wrote, is a man who can be introduced anywhere, in 1699, Isaac ran into political difficulty by entering a quarrel with visiting English officers, who in response drew their swords and threatened him. After local officials stepped in, it was Isaac who was punished, Rousseaus mother, Suzanne Bernard Rousseau, was from an upper-class family. She was raised by her uncle Samuel Bernard, a Calvinist preacher and he cared for Suzanne after her father Jacques died in his early thirties. In 1695, Suzanne had to answer charges that she had attended a street theater disguised as a peasant woman so she could gaze upon M. Vincent Sarrasin, after a hearing, she was ordered by the Genevan Consistory to never interact with him again. She married Rousseaus father at the age of 31, isaacs sister had married Suzannes brother eight years earlier, after she had become pregnant and they had been chastised by the Consistory

25.
General will
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In political philosophy, the general will is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, all citizens have the right to contribute personally, or through their representatives, to its formation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes, but it is indeed a faithful summary of his doctrine, faithful enough that commentators frequently adopt it without any hesitation. As used by Rousseau, the general will is considered by some identical to the rule of law, the notion of the general will is wholly central to Rousseaus theory of political legitimacy. It is, however, an obscure and controversial notion. Some commentators see it as no more than the dictatorship of the proletariat or the tyranny of the urban poor. This is clear from the Discourse on Political Economy, where Rousseau emphasizes that the general will exists to protect individuals against the mass and he is, of course, sharply aware that men have selfish and sectional interests which will lead them to try to oppress others. Early critics of Rousseau included Benjamin Constant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel argued that, because it lacked any grounding in an objective ideal of reason, Rousseaus account of the general will ineluctably lead to the Reign of Terror. Constant also blamed Rousseau for the excesses of the French Revolution, another writer of the period, liberal theorist Karl Popper, also interpreted Rousseau in this way, while Bertrand Russell warned that the doctrine of general will. Made possible the identification of a leader with its people. Montesquieu and Machiavelli were also of this opinion, furthermore, Rousseau envisioned his Social Contract as part of a projected larger work on political philosophy, which would have dealt with issues in larger states. Rousseau was also a great synthesizer who was engaged in a dialog with his contemporaries and with the writers of the past, such as the theorists of Natural Law, Hobbes. Prior to Rousseau, the general will referred explicitly to the general will or volition of the Deity. Montesquieu, Diderot, and Rousseaus innovation was to use the term in a rather than theological sense. Diderot on the General Will, EVERYTHING you conceive, everything you contemplate, will be good, great, elevated, sublime, if it accords with the general and common interest. There is no quality essential to your species apart from that which you demand from all your men to ensure your happiness. O not ever lose sight of it, or else you will find that your comprehension of the notions of goodness, justice, humanity and virtue grow dim. Say to yourself often, “I am a man, and I have no other truly inalienable natural rights except those of humanity. ”But, you will ask, --Denis Diderot, “Droit Naturel” article in the Encyclopédie

26.
Deism
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Deism is a philosophical position which posits that a god does not interfere directly with the world. Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, included in those influenced by its ideas were leaders of the American and French Revolutions. These lead to many subdivisions of modern deism which tends, therefore, Deism is a theological theory concerning the relationship between the Creator and the natural world. Deistic viewpoints emerged during the revolution of 17th Century Europe. Deism stood between the narrow dogmatism of the period and skepticism, though deists rejected atheism, they often were called atheists by more traditional theists. There were a number of different forms in the 17th and 18th Centuries, in England, deism included a range of people from anti-Christian to non-Christian theists. See the section Features of deism, following, Deism is related to naturalism because it credits the formation of life and the universe to a higher power, using only natural processes. Deism may also include an element, involving experiences of God. The words deism and theism are both derived from words for god, the former from Latin deus, the latter from Greek theós, prior to the 17th Century the terms were used interchangeably with the terms theism and theist, respectively. Theologians and philosophers of the 17th Century began to give a different signification to the words, both asserted belief in one supreme God, the Creator. Perhaps the first use of the term deist is in Pierre Virets Instruction Chrétienne en la doctrine de la foi et de lÉvangile, Viret, a Calvinist, regarded deism as a new form of Italian heresy. I have heard there are of this band those who call themselves Deists, an entirely new word. In England, the term deist first appeared in Robert Burtons The Anatomy of Melancholy, Lord Herbert of Cherbury is generally considered the father of English Deism, and his book De Veritate the first major statement of deism. Deism flourished in England between 1690 and 1740, at which time Matthew Tindals Christianity as Old as the Creation, also called The Deists Bible, later deism spread to France, notably through the work of Voltaire, to Germany, and to the United States. The concept of deism covers a variety of positions on a wide variety of religious issues. Sir Leslie Stephens English Thought in the Eighteenth Century describes the core of deism as consisting of critical and constructional elements, critical elements of deist thought included, Rejection of religions that are based on books that claim to contain the revealed word of God. Rejection of religious dogma and demagogy, Skepticism of reports of miracles, prophecies and religious mysteries. Constructional elements of deist thought included, God exists and created the universe, God gave humans the ability to reason

27.
Pantheism
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Pantheism is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god. The term pantheism was not coined until after Spinozas death, and his work, Ethics, was the major source from which Western pantheism spread. Pantheistic concepts may date back thousands of years, and some religions in the East continue to contain pantheistic elements, Pantheism derives from the Greek πᾶν pan and θεός theos. There are a variety of definitions of pantheism, some consider it a theological and philosophical position concerning God. As a religious position, some describe pantheism as the polar opposite of atheism, from this standpoint, pantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing, immanent God. All forms of reality may then be considered either modes of that Being, some hold that pantheism is a non-religious philosophical position. To them, pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical, pantheistic tendencies existed in a number of early Gnostic groups, with pantheistic thought appearing throughout the Middle Ages. These included a section of Johannes Scotus Eriugenas 9th-century work De divisione naturae, the Roman Catholic Church has long regarded pantheistic ideas as heresy. Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk who evangelized about an immanent and he has since become known as a celebrated pantheist and martyr of science. Bruno influenced many later thinkers including Baruch Spinoza, in the West, pantheism was formalized as a separate theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi Portuguese origin, whose book Ethics was an answer to Descartes famous dualist theory that the body, Spinoza held the monist view that the two are the same, and monism is a fundamental part of his philosophy. He was described as a God-intoxicated man, and used the word God to describe the unity of all substance, although the term pantheism was not coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate. His work, Ethics, was the source from which Western pantheism spread. The breadth and importance of Spinozas work was not fully realized until years after his death. Spinozas magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes mind–body dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophys most important thinkers, Hegel said, You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him the prince of philosophers, Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem against him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23

28.
Applied mathematics
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Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that deals with mathematical methods that find use in science, engineering, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of science and specialized knowledge. The term applied mathematics also describes the professional specialty in which work on practical problems by formulating and studying mathematical models. The activity of applied mathematics is thus connected with research in pure mathematics. Historically, applied mathematics consisted principally of applied analysis, most notably differential equations, approximation theory, quantitative finance is now taught in mathematics departments across universities and mathematical finance is considered a full branch of applied mathematics. Engineering and computer science departments have made use of applied mathematics. Today, the applied mathematics is used in a broader sense. It includes the areas noted above as well as other areas that have become increasingly important in applications. Even fields such as number theory that are part of mathematics are now important in applications. There is no consensus as to what the various branches of applied mathematics are, such categorizations are made difficult by the way mathematics and science change over time, and also by the way universities organize departments, courses, and degrees. Many mathematicians distinguish between applied mathematics, which is concerned with methods, and the applications of mathematics within science. Mathematicians such as Poincaré and Arnold deny the existence of applied mathematics, similarly, non-mathematicians blend applied mathematics and applications of mathematics. The use and development of mathematics to industrial problems is also called industrial mathematics. Historically, mathematics was most important in the sciences and engineering. Academic institutions are not consistent in the way they group and label courses, programs, at some schools, there is a single mathematics department, whereas others have separate departments for Applied Mathematics and Mathematics. It is very common for Statistics departments to be separated at schools with graduate programs, many applied mathematics programs consist of primarily cross-listed courses and jointly appointed faculty in departments representing applications. Some Ph. D. programs in applied mathematics require little or no coursework outside of mathematics, in some respects this difference reflects the distinction between application of mathematics and applied mathematics. Research universities dividing their mathematics department into pure and applied sections include MIT, brigham Young University also has an Applied and Computational Emphasis, a program that allows student to graduate with a Mathematics degree, with an emphasis in Applied Math

29.
Monarchy
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The actual power of the monarch may vary from purely symbolic, to partial and restricted, to completely autocratic. Traditionally and in most cases, the monarchs post is inherited and lasts until death or abdication, occasionally this might create a situation of rival claimants whose legitimacy is subject to effective election. Finally, there have been cases where the term of a reign is either fixed in years or continues until certain goals are achieved. Thus there are widely divergent structures and traditions defining monarchy, Monarchy was the most common form of government until the 19th century, but it is no longer prevalent. Currently,47 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state,19 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognise Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. The monarchs of Cambodia, Japan, and Malaysia reign, the word monarch comes from the Greek language word μονάρχης, monárkhēs which referred to a single, at least nominally absolute ruler. In current usage the word usually refers to a traditional system of hereditary rule. Depending on the held by the monarch, a monarchy may be known as a kingdom, principality, duchy, grand duchy, empire, tsardom, emirate, sultanate, khaganate. The form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric, the Greek term monarchia is classical, used by Herodotus. The monarch in classical antiquity is often identified as king, the Chinese, Japanese and Nepalese monarchs continued to be considered living Gods into the modern period. Since antiquity, monarchy has contrasted with forms of democracy, where power is wielded by assemblies of free citizens. In antiquity, monarchies were abolished in favour of such assemblies in Rome, much of 19th century politics was characterised by the division between anti-monarchist Radicalism and monarchist Conservativism. Many countries abolished the monarchy in the 20th century and became republics, advocacy of republics is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchies is called monarchism. In the modern era, monarchies are more prevalent in small states than in large ones, most monarchs, both historically and in the modern day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, the centre of the royal household and court. Growing up in a family, future monarchs are often trained for the responsibilities of expected future rule. Different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, and agnatic seniority. While most monarchs have been male, many female monarchs also have reigned in history, rule may be hereditary in practice without being considered a monarchy, such as that of family dictatorships or political families in many democracies. The principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of leadership

30.
Aristocracy
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Aristocracy is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning rule of the best, at the time of the words origins in Ancient Greece, the Greeks conceived it as rule by the best qualified citizens—and often contrasted it favourably with monarchy, rule by an individual. In later times, aristocracy was usually seen as rule by a group, the aristocratic class. The Greeks did not like the concept of monarchy, and as their democratic system fell, in Ancient Rome, the Republic consisted of an aristocracy—as well as consuls, a senate, and a tribal assembly. In the Middle Ages and early modern era, aristocracies primarily consisted of an aristocratic class, privileged by birth. Since the French Revolution, aristocracy has generally been contrasted with democracy, however, this distinction is often oversimplified. In exchange feudal aid is received from tenants or vassals, oaths of military allegiance, however an oligarchy, nobility or royalty had the right to set taxes, assemble or raise armies and command loyalty by virtue of traditional authority. In the 1651 book Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes an aristocracy as a commonwealth in which the representative of the citizens is an assembly by part and it is a system in which only a small part of the population represents the government. Modern depictions of aristocracy tend to regard it not as the ancient Greek concept of rule by the best, history, John Cannon, Oxford University Press,1997, ISBN 978-0-19-866176-4 Aristocracy in the Modern World, Ellis Wasson, Palgrave Macmillan,2006

31.
Democracy
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Democracy, in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament. Democracy is sometimes referred to as rule of the majority, Democracy was originally conceived in Classical Greece, where political representatives were chosen by a jury from amongst the male citizens, rich and poor. The English word dates to the 16th century, from the older Middle French, in the 5th century BC, to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens, the term is an antonym to aristocracy, meaning rule of an elite. While theoretically these definitions are in opposition, in practice the distinction has been blurred historically, the political system of Classical Athens, for example, granted democratic citizenship to free men and excluded slaves and women from political participation. In 1906, Finland became the first government to harald a more inclusive democracy at the national level. Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders, No consensus exists on how to define democracy, but legal equality, political freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics. These principles are reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law, other uses of democracy include that of direct democracy. In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, in the United States, separation of powers is often cited as a central attribute. In India, parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial review, though the term democracy is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles also are applicable to private organisations. Majority rule is listed as a characteristic of democracy. Hence, democracy allows for political minorities to be oppressed by the tyranny of the majority in the absence of legal protections of individual or group rights. An essential part of a representative democracy is competitive elections that are substantively and procedurally fair, i. e. just. It has also suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society. While representative democracy is sometimes equated with the form of government. Many democracies are constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom, the term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word comes from demos, common people and kratos, strength, led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the first democracy in 508–507 BC

32.
Tyrant
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A tyrant, in its modern English usage, is an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or person, or one who has usurped legitimate sovereignty. Often described as a character, a tyrant defends his position by oppressive means. The original Greek term, however, merely meant an authoritarian sovereign without reference to character, bearing no pejorative connotation during the Archaic, Plato and Aristotle define a tyrant as one who rules without law, and uses extreme and cruel tactics–against his own people as well as others. It is defined further in the Encyclopédie as a usurper of sovereign power who makes his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust desires, which he substitutes for laws. During the seventh and sixth centuries BC, tyranny was often looked upon as a stage between narrow oligarchy and more democratic forms of polity. However, in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, a new kind of tyrant. Tyranny includes a variety of types of government – by a tyrant. The definition is extended to other leadership and to oppressive policies. For example, a teacher may find the school administration, the textbook or standardized tests to be oppressive, the English noun tyrant appears in Middle English use, via Old French, from the 1290s. The final -t arises in Old French by association with the present participles in -ant, the word tyranny is used with many meanings, not only by the Greeks, but throughout the tradition of the great books. The Oxford English Dictionary offers alternative definitions, a ruler, an illegitimate ruler, the term is usually applied to vicious dictators who achieve bad results for the governed. The definition of a tyrant is cursed by subjectivity, oppression, injustice and cruelty do not have standardized measurements or thresholds. The Greeks defined both usurpers and those inheriting rule from usurpers as tyrants, Old words are defined by their historical usage. It is difficult to determine characteristics of tyrants were defining rather than descriptive. Biblical quotations do not use the word tyrant, but express opinions very similar to those of the Greek philosophers, citing the wickedness, cruelty, like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people. A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor, but one who hates unjust gain will enjoy a long life, proverbs 28, 15–16 By justice a king gives stability to the land, but one who makes heavy extractions ruins it. Proverbs 29,4 The Greek philosophers stressed the quality of rule rather than legitimacy or absolutism, both Plato and Aristotle speak of the king as a good monarch and the tyrant as a bad one. Both say that monarchy, or rule by a man, is royal when it is for the welfare of the ruled

33.
Johan de Witt
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As a republican he opposed the House of Orange. He was also strongly liberal, preferring lesser power to the central government, however, his negligence of the Dutch land army proved disastrous when the Dutch Republic suffered numerous early defeats in the Rampjaar. The rioters were never prosecuted, and historians have argued that William of Orange may have incited them, Johan de Witt was a member of the old Dutch patrician family De Witt. Johan and Cornelis both attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, which imbued both brothers with the values of the Roman Republic, after having attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, he studied at the University of Leiden, where he excelled at mathematics and law. He received his doctorate from the University of Angers in 1645 and he practiced law as an attorney in The Hague as an associate with the firm of Frans van Schooten. In 1650 he was appointed leader of the deputation of Dordrecht to the States of Holland, in December 1650, De Witt became the pensionary of Dordrecht. Once during the year 1652 in the city of Flushing, Johan De Witt found himself faced with a mob of angry demonstrators of sailors, however, even at the young age of 27 years, it was Johans coolheadedness that calmed the situation. Many people older than Johan began to see greatness in Johan dating from that experience, Johan de Witt married on 16 February 1655 Wendela Bicker, the daughter of Jan Bicker, an influential patrician from Amsterdam, and Agneta de Graeff van Polsbroek. Jan Bicker served as mayor of Amsterdam in 1653, De Witt became a relative to the strong republican-minded brothers Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and to Andries Bicker. Heer van Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard and IJsselveere, married to Wilhelmina de Witt and he was secretary of the city of Dordrecht After De Witts death, his brother in law Pieter de Graeff became a guardian over his children. In 1653, the States of Holland elected De Witt councilor pensionary, the raadpensionaris of Holland was often referred to as the Grand Pensionary by foreigners as he represented the preponderant province in the Union of the Dutch Republic. He was a servant who lead the States of province by his experience, tenure, familiarity with the issues and he was in no manner equivalent to a modern Prime Minister. · Representing the province of Holland, Johan De Witt tended to identify with the interests of the shipping and trading interests in the United Provinces. These interests were largely concentrated in the province of Holland, not surprisingly, Johan de Witt also held views of toleration of religious beliefs. De Witts power base was the merchant class into which he was born. This class broadly coincided politically with the States faction, stressing Protestant religious moderation, William II of Orange was a prime example of this tendency among the leaders of the House of Orange to support Calvinism. William II was elected Stadholder in 1647 and continued to serve until his death in November,1650, eight days after his death, William IIs wife delivered a male heir--William III of Orange. Many citizens of the United Provinces urged the election of the infant William III as stadholder under a regency until he came of age, however, the Provinces, under the dominance of the province of Holland did not fill the office of Stadholder

34.
Synod of Dort
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Dates in this article are according to the Julian Calendar. Sources using the Old Style calendar will need to be adjusted by adding ten days, the Synod of Dort was an international Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618–1619, by the Dutch Reformed Church, to settle a divisive controversy initiated by the rise of Arminianism. The first meeting was on 13 November 1618 and the final meeting, voting representatives from eight foreign Reformed churches were also invited. Dort was a contemporary English term for the town of Dordrecht, in 2014 the first entire critical edition of the Acts and Documents of the Synod was published. There had been previous provincial synods of Dort, and a National Synod in 1578, for that reason the 1618 meeting is sometimes called the Second Synod of Dort. The acts of the Synod were tied to political intrigues that arose during the Twelve Years Truce, after the death of Jacob Arminius his followers presented objections to the Belgic Confession and the teaching of John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and their followers. These objections were published in a document called The Remonstrance of 1610, and they taught election on the basis of foreseen faith, a universal atonement, resistible grace, and the possibility of lapse from grace. The opposing Calvinists or Gomarists, led by Franciscus Gomarus of the University of Leiden, planning for a National Synod was begun by Adriaan Pauw in March 1618. Before that, there had been a debate as to whether the synod should be national, as the Contra-Remonstrants wished, or provincial for Holland and this decision was worked out in 1617, with outside input from the English ambassador Dudley Carleton. The purpose of the Synod was to settle the controversy over Arminianism and it was subsequently alleged that the outcome had already been decided. According to Frederick Calder, condemnation was determined before the national synod met, on the other hand, beyond the condemnation of the Arminians, the theological formulations of the Canons of the Synod by no means gave support to all the Gomarists wanted. The more extreme views of Dutch Calvinists were moderated in the detailed debates, the Synod had members representing Reformed groups from continental Europe, as well as from the British isles. Among these groups were also Anglican delegates from the Church of England, Simon Episcopius was spokesman of the 14 Remonstrants who were summoned before the Synod in 1618. At the opening of the synod, Episcopius asked to speak, the Arminians would not submit to this plan of procedure because it destroyed their whole scheme of argument and were thus compelled to withdraw. Upon their departure, the Synod proceeded without them, after that a month was spent on procedural matters concerning the Remonstrants. They were finally ejected from the Synod at session 57 on 14 January and these are sometimes referred to as the Five points of Calvinism. The Decision of the Synod of Dort on the Five Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands, the thirteen Remonstrant ministers, including Episcopius, had been charged to remain in Dort until further instruction. Furthermore, Episcopius was commanded not to write letters or books promoting the doctrines of the Remonstrants, the Remonstrants agreed to refrain from ministering in the government-ordained churches, but confessed their duty to expound their doctrines wherever people would assemble to hear them

35.
G. E. Moore
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George Edward G. E. Moore OM FBA was an English philosopher. He was, with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Gottlob Frege and he was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, highly influential among the Bloomsbury Group, and the editor of the influential journal Mind. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1918 and he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, the intellectual secret society, from 1894 to 1901, and the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club. Moore was born in Upper Norwood, Croydon, Greater London, on 4 November 1873 and his grandfather was the author Dr George Moore. His eldest brother was Thomas Sturge Moore, a poet, writer and engraver and he was educated at Dulwich College and in 1892 went up to Trinity College Cambridge to study classics for moral sciences. He became a Fellow of Trinity in 1898, and went on to hold the University of Cambridge chair of Mental Philosophy and Logic, from 1925 to 1939. Moore is best known today for his defence of ethical non-naturalism, his emphasis on common sense in philosophical method, and he was admired by and influential among other philosophers, and also by the Bloomsbury Group, but is mostly unknown today outside of academic philosophy. Moores essays are known for their clear, circumspect writing style and he was critical of modern philosophy for its lack of progress, which he believed was in stark contrast to the dramatic advances in the natural sciences since the Renaissance. Among Moores most famous works are his book Principia Ethica, and his essays, The Refutation of Idealism, A Defence of Common Sense and he was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1918-19. Paul Levy wrote in Moore, G. E. Moore, together they had two sons, the poet Nicholas Moore and the composer Timothy Moore. His influential work Principia Ethica is one of the inspirations of the movement against ethical naturalism and is partly responsible for the twentieth-century concern with meta-ethics. Moore asserted that philosophical arguments can suffer from a confusion between the use of a term in an argument and the definition of that term. He named this confusion the naturalistic fallacy, for example, an ethical argument may claim that if a thing has certain properties, then that thing is good. A hedonist may argue that pleasant things are good things, other theorists may argue that complex things are good things. Moore contends that if such arguments are correct, they do not provide definitions for the term good. The property of goodness cannot be defined and it can only be shown and grasped. Any attempt to define it will shift the problem. Moores argument for the indefinability of good is called the open-question argument

36.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge, during his lifetime he published just one slim book, the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one article, one book review and a childrens dictionary. His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously, Philosophical Investigations appeared as a book in 1953, and has since come to be recognised as one of the most important works of philosophy in the twentieth century. His teacher Bertrand Russell described Wittgenstein as the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, born in Vienna into one of Europes richest families, he inherited a large fortune from his father in 1913. Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Wittgenstein contemplating it too and he described philosophy as the only work that gives me real satisfaction. His philosophy is divided into an early period, exemplified by the Tractatus. The later Wittgenstein rejected many of the assumptions of the Tractatus, ludwigs grandmother Fanny was a first cousin of the famous violinist Joseph Joachim. They had 11 children—among them Wittgensteins father, Karl Otto Clemens Wittgenstein became an industrial tycoon, and by the late 1880s was one of the richest men in Europe, with an effective monopoly on Austrias steel cartel. Thanks to Karl, the Wittgensteins became the second wealthiest family in Austria-Hungary, however, their wealth diminished due to post-1918 hyperinflation and subsequently during the Great Depression, although even as late as 1938 they owned 13 mansions in Vienna alone. Wittgensteins mother was Leopoldine Maria Josefa Kalmus, known among friends as Poldi and her father was a Bohemian Jew and her mother was Austrian-Slovene Catholic—she was Wittgensteins only non-Jewish grandparent. She was an aunt of the Nobel Prize laureate Friedrich Hayek on her maternal side, Wittgenstein was born at 8,30 pm on 26 April 1889 in the so-called Wittgenstein Palace at Alleegasse 16, now the Argentinierstrasse, near the Karlskirche. Karl and Poldi had nine children in all, the children were baptized as Catholics, received formal Catholic instruction, and raised in an exceptionally intense environment. The family was at the center of Viennas cultural life, Bruno Walter described the life at the Wittgensteins palace as an atmosphere of humanity. Karl was a patron of the arts, commissioning works by Auguste Rodin and financing the citys exhibition hall and art gallery. Gustav Klimt painted Wittgensteins sister for her portrait, and Johannes Brahms. For Wittgenstein, who highly valued precision and discipline, contemporary music was never considered acceptable at all, music, he said to his friend Drury in 1930, came to a full stop with Brahms, and even in Brahms I can begin to hear the noise of machinery. He also learnt to play the clarinet in his thirties, a fragment of music, composed by Wittgenstein, was discovered in one of his 1931 notebooks, by Michael Nedo, Director of the Wittgenstein Institute in Cambridge. Three of the five brothers would commit suicide

37.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
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The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his lifetime. G. E. Moore originally suggested the works Latin title as homage to the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus by Baruch Spinoza. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the Tractatus while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it when a prisoner of war at Como and it was first published in German in 1921 as Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung. The Tractatus was influential chiefly amongst the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, such as Rudolf Carnap, Bertrand Russells article The Philosophy of Logical Atomism is presented as a working out of ideas that he had learned from Wittgenstein. The Tractatus employs a notoriously austere and succinct literary style, the work contains almost no arguments as such, but rather consists of declarative statements that are meant to be self-evident. The statements are hierarchically numbered, with seven basic propositions at the primary level, Wittgensteins later works, notably the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations, criticised many of the ideas in the Tractatus. There are seven main propositions in the text and these are, The world is everything that is the case. What is the case is the existence of states of affairs, a logical picture of facts is a thought. A thought is a proposition with a sense, a proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions. The general form of a proposition is the form of a truth function. This is the form of a proposition. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent, the first chapter is very brief,1 The world is all that is the case. 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things,1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts. 1.12 For the totality of facts determines what is the case,1.13 The facts in logical space are the world. 1.2 The world divides into facts,1.21 Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same. This along with the beginning of two can be taken to be the relevant parts of Wittgensteins metaphysical view that he use to support his picture theory of language. These sections concern Wittgensteins view that the sensible, changing world we perceive does not consist of substance, Proposition two begins with a discussion of objects, form and substance. 2 What is the case—a fact—is the existence of atomic facts,2.01 An atomic fact is a combination of objects

38.
Maimonides
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In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician. Born in Cordova, Almoravid Empire on Passover Eve,1135 or 1138, he worked as a rabbi, physician and he died in Egypt on December 12,1204, whence his body was taken to the lower Galilee and buried in Tiberias. Nonetheless, he was acknowledged as among the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah still carries significant canonical authority as a codification of Talmudic law and he is sometimes known as ha Nesher ha Gadol in recognition of his outstanding status as a bona fide exponent of the Oral Torah. Aside from being revered by Jewish historians, Maimonides also figures prominently in the history of Islamic. Influenced by Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and his contemporary Averroes, he in his turn influenced other prominent Arab and Muslim philosophers and he became a prominent philosopher and polymath in both the Jewish and Islamic worlds. His full Hebrew name is Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, whose acronym forms Rambam and his full Arabic name is Abū ʿImrān Mūsā bin Maimūn bin ʿUbaidallāh al-Qurtabī or Mūsā bin Maymūn for short. In Latin, the Hebrew ben becomes the Greek−style suffix -ides to form Moses Maimonides, Maimonides was born in Córdoba during what some scholars consider to be the end of the golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula, after the first centuries of the Moorish rule. At an early age, he developed an interest in sciences and he read those Greek philosophers accessible in Arabic translations, and was deeply immersed in the sciences and learning of Islamic culture. Maimonides was not known as a supporter of mysticism, although a strong type of mysticism has been discerned in his philosophy. He expressed disapproval of poetry, the best of which he declared to be false and this sage, who was revered for his personality as well as for his writings, led a busy life, and wrote many of his works while travelling or in temporary accommodation. Maimonides studied Torah under his father Maimon, who had in turn studied under Rabbi Joseph ibn Migash, a Berber dynasty, the Almohads, conquered Córdoba in 1148, and abolished dhimmi status in some of their territories. The loss of protected status threatened the Jewish and Christian communities with conversion to Islam, death. The historical records of abuses against Jews in the immediate post-1148 period are subject to different interpretations, Maimonidess family, along with most other Jews, chose exile. Some say, though, that it is likely that Maimonides feigned a conversion to Islam before escaping and this forced conversion was ruled legally invalid under Islamic law when brought up by a rival in Egypt. For the next ten years, Maimonides moved about in southern Spain, during this time, he composed his acclaimed commentary on the Mishnah in the years 1166–1168. Following this sojourn in Morocco, together with two sons, he sojourned in the Holy Land, before settling in Fustat, Egypt around 1168, while in Cairo, he studied in a yeshiva attached to a small synagogue. In the Holy Land, he prayed at the Temple Mount and he wrote that this day of visiting the Temple Mount was a day of holiness for him and his descendants

Wieczór Wrocławia – Daily newspaper of Wrocław, People's Republic of Poland, March 20–21, 1981, with censor intervention on first and last pages—under the headlines "Co zdarzyło się w Bydgoszczy?" (What happened in Bydgoszcz?) and "Pogotowie strajkowe w całym kraju" (Country-wide strike alert). The censor had removed a section regarding the strike alert; hence the workers in the printing house blanked out an official propaganda section. The right-hand page also includes a hand-written confirmation of that decision by the local "Solidarność" Trade Union.

Historic Russian censorship. Book Notes of my life by N.I. Grech, published in St. Petersburg 1886 by A.S. Suvorin. The censored text was replaced by dots.

The Merneptah Stele. While alternative translations exist, the majority of biblical archeologists translate a set of hieroglyphs as "Israel", representing the first instance of the name Israel in the historical record.

The Encyclopædia Britannica (Latin for "British Encyclopaedia"), published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a …

15th edition of the Britannica. The initial volume with the green spine is the Propædia; the red-spined and black-spined volumes are the Micropædia and the Macropædia, respectively. The last three volumes are the 2002 Book of the Year (black spine) and the two-volume index (cyan spine).